Le financement des très petites entreprises urbaines : étude d'impact d'un projet de micro-finance à Antananarivo (Madagascar)

This article highlights the main findings of an evaluation report on the impact of a microfinance program based in Antananarivo. It first provides background information on microfinance programs in Madagascar and on the market-demand for micro-loans. It then describes the main characteristics of the participants to the microfinance program under concern. It finally presents the results of the economic impact analysis of the program on the clients' microenterprises, using the matching estimators' method. The analysis is based on two original surveys conducted in 2001, which were administered to a large representative sample of microenterprises in Antananarivo and to a representative sample of clients respectively. The results suggest that the gains from microborrowing accrued to participants are large. Productivity, production levels and turnover are all found to have significantly increased thanks to credit. However, the accrued benefits from microfinance are likely to be small at a more aggregate level, as micro- finance programs have a very low coverage in urban areas. In terms of targeting, the results show that the microfinance program does exclusively benefit small unregistered production units but only the better-off ones.